Ah, Free Press. One of my early favorite tech topics at RedState. One of the more visible George Soros-funded fronts, along with Public Knowledge. I have to say my early hits have been somewhat successful too, when Free Press completely gave up on Save the Internet as a fake left-right thing, instead fully integrating it with the Free Press extremist brand. Remember when they could fool solid groups like Gun Owners of America with their dishonest rhetoric?
I mean, they do still have language up that says “Organizations as diverse as the Christian Coalition for America, Moveon.org, the ACLU and the American Library Association have joined in support of Net Neutrality.” But, what? MoveOn, ACLU, and ALA are ‘diverse?’ Get real. Christian Coalition is the only right-wing fig leaf they have left, and Christian Coalition isn’t exactly known as a small-government group, nor a tech policy leader. Come on. I won, they lost. Net Neutrality was exposed as a single-party, left-wing effort, like so many others of the extremist Obama regulators. Time to… Move On.
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Last week I noted that the FCC is officially moving ahead with its new subsidy program. The administration will convert the Universal Service Fund – currently taxing the public and handing it out to rural telephone carriers – into a grab bag of Internet subsidies. The rural phone companies are unhappy, and everyone else is racing to get a cut. C Spire, apparently serving many rural southern customers, says the order “runs counter to the administration’s goal of promoting broadband deployment.” The Tech/Users Coalition, a group that includes Obama allies Google and Sprint, calls the USF “antiquated” and cheers the reform effort, while pressing for as much subsidy of Internet connectivity as possible. IIA also supports the effort.
Look, I don’t blame any business for looking to get a cut here. The money’s there, it’s perfectly legal, and that’s the way it is. Nobody squawked at the rural carriers collecting checks all these years. But that said, I hope Republicans will look to repeal all of this in 2013.
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Oh for crying out loud. For all that Washington talks tough about getting Americans access to high speed Internet, the “supercommittee” wants to tax new spectrum licensees. That’s just what we need: make it more expensive to build out America’s wireless infrastructure in order to pay for the President and his Cabinet to hand out money to their friends and political supporters. Isn’t that special? Here’s a joint letter against it from a number of industry groups.
Then you’ve got Dick Blumenthal, Al Franken, and Amy Klobuchar, leading the charge for the Democrat-controlled Senate that hasn’t passed a budget in 900 days, but wants to get government involved on what can or can’t be called 4G wireless Internet. Great prioritization here.
Spectrum’s important, though. Merely having access to a solid Internet connection lets Americans ave lots of money every year. Not just from being able to buy online, but also from gathering information, and simply from being able to stay at home. IIA did the math and American families each can save thousands of dollars a year online. And we’re busy regulating, taxing, and harassing firms like Google and AT&T, instead of getting government out of the way of investment. Yes, I’m frustrated.
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I’ve been warning for ages that Universal Service Fund reform was coming, and that it would end up as an Internet tax. Well here we go: Plans are afoot. Oddly enough though, people seem fine with the America’s Broadband Connectivity Plan, which so far seems to be a plan to redirect funding toward greater Internet access. Free State Foundation is fine with the plans so far. IIA supports it. Greg Walden and Lee Terry are saying positive things.
I still worry that a new tax will spring up here somewhere, but if it doesn’t, then maybe we’ll dodge a bullet.
Speaking of bullets though, Dick Durbin’s trying to fire another one at our already shaky economy. Amazon supports it, but only because they want the states off their back. I oppose it. No new taxes. And sorry Charlie (Dickie?), but sales taxes on interstate commerce are most definitely a new tax.
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